PMC Deposit Process/Matrix

The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH-funded research. Upon acceptance for publication, NIH requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central. To help advance science and improve human health, our policy also requires that the full publication be accessible to the public. However, the full manuscript cannot be made available earlier than 12 months after publication. The published manuscripts must be embargoed for 12 months. Specifically, your embargo begins with the publication date and is lifted one year (a full 12 months) from publication date. During this 12-month period, the PMC depository allows you to clearly label articles for the full 12-month embargo.

However, if an author purchases Open Access, the embargo is lifted and the manuscript becomes accessible immediately with the ability to be downloaded by anyone free of charge. Open Access refers to scholarly journals that are available online, free of charge to the reader, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the Internet itself. Please note that a fee accompanies the Open Access option.

For a brief understanding of the differences in PubMed Central and PubMed see link.

Matrix for Posting Manuscripts at Pub Central (PMC) and PubMed
Based on Federal Funding and Open AccessThe matrix is based on the fact that the journal is NOT currently indexed in PubMed